WSJ Article May 3 2012 DC Baseball

Check out today's Wall Street Journal front page piece on DC Nationals restricting ticket sales to DC, Md and Va zips only. Team COO wants an all National fanbase in the ballpark. The funny thing is, the crowd is typically all decked out in red, so you can't tell if its Natl or Philly fans. And the Nats' CFO can't distinguish Nats vs Philly greenbacks in the coffers. Oh! And by the way, Philly Sports Fans are probably the best travelling fan base in the country. Too many work arounds for this "restrictive" ticket purchase policy to work

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As an Orioles fan I completely sympathize with the Nationals fans who get sick of their park being taken over. But I've always felt that what Nationals and Orioles fans should do is truck a couple of thousand people to Citizens Bank Park or Yankee Stadium and dish it out. This plan backfired...people knew how much these tickets were worth and there were 9,000 of them on StubHub the day after they went on sale!

This news is a bit old to me, I heard about the annoucement back in December or January. The zip code restriction was done for a month before the public on sale date for the rest of the single game tickets. I like the steps being taken to improve the atmosphere at the park, but it didn't seem to work. I could've used my brother's MD address if I wanted to go, but I thought it would be unfair to true Nats fans. At least they gave them a month limit to buy tickets and it was only this Mother's Day weekend series.

The zip code restriction at Nats Park only applied to this last series against the Phillies - should otherwise be possible to go on line and buy tickets. (And so long as you don't show up drunk and belligerent after a three hour bus ride we will all enjoy the game!)

The real problem with Phillies fans at Nats Park has been busloads of twenty-somethings, who get drunk on the ride down. Nats Park is used to commonly having fans from opposing teams, since a lot of people in the area are from other places (and typicallly are Nats fans, except when their childhood team shows up). Opening Day a couple of years ago was horrible - Nats management invited all these people down on a radio broadcast, and we got to hear boos and "Yankees suck!" screamed thoroughout presenting the Golden Glove and Silver Slugger to Ryan Zimmerman for the prior year. Anyway, based on that and comparable behavior a lot of Nats fans simply refused to go to the park when the Phillies are in town. Anyway, our team is pretty hot now (and in fact we won the 18 game series against the Phillies last year, including taking the final series in Citizens Park) this "Take Back the Park" campaign was done about 3 months ago - you can only buy tickets if your credit card mailing address is in MD VA or DC. FYI, the team president who invited all the Phillies fans down (who otherwise is quite good at his job, Mrs. Lincoln) is Stan Kasten, now part of the Dodgers new ownership, and certainly the guy who will run things on a day to day basis in LA. Bottom line for me is that I will be at all three games this weekend, and we will take back our park!

The funny thing about this is that I took a day off of work back when the Nationals tickets went on sale so that I could order tickets for the Yankees Nationals series for Father's Day weekend. The guy that I spoke too told me that he would guarantee me seats by the Yankees dugout if I ordered 10 or more (I didn't get 10!) but I would have to take a 12 game package since I was coming from NJ. He was going to give me a great deal on the tickets but there was no way I could take 10 tickets for 12 games. He also stated to me that they were just trying to fill the stands.

Now, I have not been to a Nationals game since 2008 and the stadium was empty. I do find it hard to believe that the Nationals have a hard time selling tickets since Strasburg and Harper are with the team.

Ever since my tickets were ordered, the same sales rep has called me a few times to see if I was interested in taking the drive down to DC for a game so that seats would fill. I think it's great, but unfortunatley my job gets in the way of going to more games a season!

When I was looking for the tickets in the first place, the Nationals website had posted something about cheaper tickets and free shirts when the Phillies were in town!

Cant wait for Fathers Day!

Tim,

I know exactly what you mean about Camden Yards, but from a Yankee Fan perspective! Any way, funny story for you......I took my wife and 1 year old son to Citizens Bank Park to see the Giants and Phillies back in 2007. I wanted to see Barry Bonds play one more time before he was finished! I live in north New Jersey and decided to take the train down. After a great day, at the game, we got back on the train to come home........to my surprise, nothing but drunk Red Sox nation taking the train back to Boston! I would of got away with it, except my son and I were wearing Yankee shirts! A train ride I will never forget!

"Philly Sports Fans are probably the best travelling fan base in the country"

Red Sox Fans, myself included, tend to disagree with you...I can see where he is coming from, having been at a Phillies @ Nationals game last year and having the home team player who hits a walk off grand slam booed by a majority of the fans...but you cannot ignore the positives of the $ coming in from the fans. Orioles fans have said the same thing for years when Camden Yards is transformed into Fenway South and its all red.